Question about orange 500's

[LoveOldPhones]

some years ago i stumbled on a kind of burnt orange 500 in a junk shop.  I LOVED the color but for some reason i didnt buy it.  i dont know what company made it but the shade of orange was so mellow and muted

i have regreted that decision ever since.  it was such a beautiful shade of orange.  it wasnt  a bright orange like the 2500 touch tone orange phone i have.

what i would like to know is..... what year were the first orange 500's made and what company made them?

also...... it seems the color for orange was different from different companies that made the phones.

does anyone have a muted kind of burnt orange 500?
if so i would love to see a picture of it.

i recently thought i saw one on ebay but the shade of that color is so hard to tell in pictures


thanks

[Dan/Panther]

Stromberg Carlson, and ITT both make Orange 500's I would guess they started mid 70's. The ITT is very true to WE500 design. The SC are really cheaply made.
D/P

[LoveOldPhones]

Stromberg Carlson, and ITT both make Orange 500's I would guess they started mid 70's. The ITT is very true to WE500 design. The SC are really cheaply made.
D/P

NICE phone Dan ..... is that a true representation of the color of it?

what i would like to know is the exact year they started.
maybe some orange phone owners can share their dates here to see who has the oldest one.

what year is that one in the picture?

thanks

[Adam]

I can pin the date down somewhat, for ITT phones at least.

In my copy of the ITT TIMM-2 (Telephone Instrument Maintenance Manual)* dated 10-70, the orange color is NOT listed.

HOWEVER, in my copy of the TIMM-2 dated 2-75, it IS listed as color code 43, official name "Burnt Orange".

So, ITT started making 500 sets available in 43 Burnt Orange some time between late 1970 and early 1975.

* Have you noticed I LOVE the ITT TIMM-2? 

[paul-f]

While hunting through Public Relations files in the SBC Archives (now AT&T) many years ago, I discovered notes that date the introduction of orange telephones to mid-1971.

Apparently the credit belongs to Stromberg Carlson, who was reacting to market input from Continental Telephone Corp.  The story goes that the customer desire for orange had popped up for years, but the spark came when marketing reps from CTC's Southeast Division marketing group passed along the request when touring the SC Charlottesville, VA plant.  SC did some market research involving interior decorators and determined that orange and lime green were good candidates for new colors. 

They worked on orange first.  Continental Telephone planned to name the color "Clementine."

ITT was quick to adopt the colors as well.  Needless to say, the Bell System suffered from NIH. 

[However, the Bell System did use a relatively bright green (lime green - 106) and orange (rust -124) in the Design Line series, and similar colors later in the Trimline.]

[LoveOldPhones]

COOL ! thanks for the information guys.... i wonder what the first year for orange was for all the companies.
if the color is listed as burnt orange..... which company actually made them in burnt orange.
all the  orange phones i have seen..... with the exception of that one i should have bought..... all seem to be a brighter orange.

i wonder what they looked like the first year of production.
i find it curious that its hard to pin down the first year each company came out with them.

thanks again for your comments.